The Only Man on the Island
by Jade Eclipse
Summary: He might as well have been the only man on the island. JinDrabble, short.


The Only Man on the Island

Summary: He might as well have been the only man on the island. JinDrabble.

Disclaimer: Don't own it, etc., etc.

Okay, first of all, someone please go read my story Common Enemies. I'm review starved. And yes, I am begging. Never posting right before an episode again, it gets drowned out. That hits meter keeps creeping up through the sixties, more than any of my stories, and no reviews. Grr… Am violently hoping my computer is just delayed and that twenty-four hours thing will kick in. It's torture watching some numbers climb and the other remain permanently affixed at 0.

Characters: Jin and that's about it.

Pairing: Jin/Sun, of course, because they're perfect. I just adore them and I don't think either gets as much attention as they deserve in the fanfictionverse. Imzadi hit this one on the head before it even occurred to me to write it. Don't like my writing style on this… I'm being lazy again, but it's something for being churned out so quickly.

Besides, I'm branching out from Sawyer-analysis fics.

Rating: K. It's written sans Sawyer's language, so it's pretty clean.

This Author's Note exceeds all necessary limitations.

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Nearly fifty survivors. There are nearly _fifty_ of them. Most of them are practically strangers to each other, dealing and suffering and learning how to exist in a wilderness devoid of electricity and tall buildings.

But Jin might as well have been the only one of that entire number. To him, the rest are mere background, drifting to and fro and stumbling over every obstacle in the way. He and Sun are the only survivors, and the rest garble on in their English and make everything so much more complicated then simple act of abidance calls for.

He had found out how to be self-sufficient. He fishes, he eats, he lives another day. He wasn't even holding on to the idea of rescue, just the tentative promise of seeing the sun hike its way back into the sky in the morning at least one more time. So every day he got up and stood with the water lapping around his legs, staring into the incredible, sparkling blue ocean. He never focused on its beauty; he was concerned with the promise of sustenance that dwelled beneath it.

So he would fish for an entire community. He didn't know them well enough to care terribly, but he would do his slight part. Mostly it's for Sun and himself. She was real and he was real, the rest were just ghosts- and of course he realized that it worked in reverse as well, but he couldn't see it from his point of view. It was only him and his wife, and no one else. The language barrier proved to be a tremendous impediment in being counted among the castaways.

So yes, he might have gone a little overboard. Sun wore her shirt unbuttoned the slightest bit and he went completely haywire. From the calm, relaxed man who she had married, it must have seemed like a horrifying change. But he was terrified. She began to fit in among them and he simply _couldn't_. So even the tiniest detail, a button undone or a smile flashed at one of the other islanders and he felt a chill creep down his spine. He was going to lose her like this and that was all that had ever really, truly scared him. The mere thought of it had made him panic back in the city and sent his mind reeling here.

Then the raft burned, and he discovered exactly how _dangerous_ his isolation could be. He had no way to defend himself, no way to proclaim his innocence to a hoard of people who had mistakenly amassed the evidence against him. He had tasted fear and hopelessness, because he understood the charges but not how to protect himself from their suspicion and paranoid accusations.

To twist the metaphorical knife in his gut, he had lost her. After holding on for so long, he lost her because she was trying to defend him. She saved him and cast him aside all in one motion. The division between himself and his wife grew almost unbearably.

Just like that, he was alone. She had her connection now, spoke freely to them, nonsense words that made him dizzy just to listen to coming from her mouth. A slap and a sting and he was left all alone. He felt, for the first time, that he was ignorant. It was a stupid, childish thought, since the rest were just as ignorant for not knowing Korean as he was for not knowing their speech. But they _looked_ at him like he was ignorant, just because he knew something they did not and didn't understand them.

Nearly fifty survivors, and without Sun he was the only man on the island. They had been ghosts before and once she joined their company he wasn't sure what to do. It came, abruptly, to his realization that maybe being the only one on the island wasn't the best idea. He could have lived on his own here, but it would have driven him insane after a while.

This was his inspiration for helping on the raft. Take up a piece of the load and earn his place among them. It was defiance and desperation combined. He actually started to make an effort, to associate with them and speak the same way. He wished that he knew what it was that Sun screamed at him in that argument they had. He tried to keep the syllables locked in his memory so that they would some day make sense, but they slipped from his mind too fast to check.

Maybe it's long past time he learns to coexist with these people. It doesn't look like rescue will be coming and the raft failed before it could really have a chance. They're stuck here and he might as well get used to the idea because it's too late to change it, too late to take back boarding that doomed flight. It might have been the best thing for his marriage, after all, or it might have been the very worst obstacle to confront them yet. No matter what, he's going to have to learn how to fight for her. Sun has left and he will follow her, even among the ghosts if that's what it's going to take.

_Finis_


End file.
